JOIN GJI/MCC AS WE STAND TOGETHER FOR JUSTICE

In a few days, the United States will commemorate the 50th Anniversary of one of the most famous events in Civil Rights History: the March from Selma to Montgomery. It was a painful and bloody moment in the struggle for racial equality, where activists of many faiths, backgrounds, and regions of the U.S. gathered to press government at every level for dignity, justice, and the right to live freely. Marchers were met with extreme violence that was broadcast around the country on television and in newspapers. Hate and violence were exposed for the world to see. While the segregated South died a legal death, racial discrimination is still a reality for far too many.

As people of faith whose movement was born out of discrimination and violence, MCC and the Global Justice Institute (GJI) know the harm injustice can do to a people. We stand in solidarity with all who live on the margins and stand in need of a more just and equitable society. We recognize that the movement for LGBT equality in the U.S. was rooted in the Civil Rights Movement. Hatred motivated people to bomb both the 16th Street Baptist Church and Founders MCCLA. Through the lens of faith, one cannot see a difference between charred bodies hanging from of a Louisiana lynching tree or the charred body framed in the window of a fire bombed Upstairs Lounge. We are united. And we seek to practice a faith that crosses lines of race, gender, gender expression, sexuality.

In this spirit, we extend an invitation for you to join us for the 50th Anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery March. We invite all MCCers, friends, allies, and all people of faith to join us in Selma, Alabama, 5-9 March 2015.

Rev. Dr. Robert Griffin, who was raised in segregated Alabama, will lead a delegation from the Global Justice Institute and Metropolitan Community Churches in participating in the commemoration of the march. The GJI/MCC delegation will take part in all the weekend’s activities, including the march across the famous Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on Sunday 8 March.